08.28.07

It’s just entered totality, check it out if you’re awake. It’s shocking how many lights my apartment complex still has on at 3 AM. Although this is an unusually long eclipse, it’s going to be a brief one for me. Lunar eclipses are way cooler when they happen at a more reasonable time.

08.20.07

The Stanley Fish blog on the NY Times has a post looking at Hillary’s potential running mates this morning. This kind of piece does a lot to reinforce the “Hillary is inevitable” meme. I’m tempted to buy into it myself. Hillary’s been running the best campaign so far, and she’s been effective in all the debates. (Except for that quip about lobbyists representing the real America.)

At the same time, I know that the Hillary machine is trying to project a sense of inevitability. It’s all part of their plan, and I don’t want to buy into it.

08.12.07

I’ve always wished I could link to Wikipedia on this blog by typing “[[Tiger Woods]]”, just like I would in a Wikipedia article. I even considered writing a WordPress plugin to do just that. Thanks to the WikipediaLink plugin by pixelbath, I don’t have to. It already works great. Mad props!

08.11.07

Novak DjokovicupsetRafael Nadal in the Rogers Masters semifinals this evening, making up for the Wimbledon semifinals earlier this year. It sets up an interesting final with Roger Federer tomorrow afternoon (noon PST) in Montreal. Fed’s never lost to Djokovic before, (he’s 4-0) but they haven’t played since Djokovic cracked the top ten earlier this year. This is the final I was rooting for at Wimbledon earlier this year, as those elusive “astute readers of danvk.org” will recall. I’m calling Fed two sets. I don’t think Djokovic can beat him.

This week and next also mark one of the more brain-dead stretches of the ATP tour. The top players are required to enter all nine Masters Series events, which are just one notch below the Grand Slams. Tomorrow is the Rogers Masters final, and on Monday the Cincinnati Masters begins. There’s not even a one day break, but the players are all required to enter both. This makes for some really exhausted players and surprising results at the Cincy Masters. Last year Federer won the Rogers Masters, but lost to #21 Andy Murray in early round play the next week. For a sense of what an aberration this was, Fed only lost to two players last year: Nadal and Andy Murray. It’s absurd that the ATP continues to schedule the Masters Series in this way.

Update: Novak made me eat my words, winning 7-6(2), 2-6, 7-6(2). Fed came quite close to winning the first set: he botched five set points before Djokovic sent it to the ‘breaker. Mad props to him, I underestimated him. He’ll be fun to watch at the US Open this fall.

I filled up on gas today for the first time in almost exactly a month.

It’s always struck me that miles per gallon is a terrible metric. I can increase my average miles per gallon by going on a long road trip with lots of highway driving. But I certainly haven’t saved any gas or money by doing so. The better metric is gallons per week, or maybe even dollars per week. By those standards, I’m using 2.6 gallons/week = $7.70/week at $3/gal. I suspect those are both quite low, whereas I only get just over 20 miles per gallon, a pretty piddling number. What are your numbers?